Christ, the whole Wilbur situation is so fucked. Already the things that are coming out of the woodworks so quickly are so sad.
tw for abuse and misogyny. If you arenât aware of this yet, Wilbur Soot has been revealed as a prolific abuser
My heart breaks for all the people heâs harmed. I think Shelby was really intelligent in the way that sheâs brought this to attention, without naming him. This meant that even though some people denied it or lashed back at her, the repercussions were minimised.
Wilbur responding proved it was him she was talking about, although the details she provided made it so patently clear it was him from the start, it made it so that he had to admit he was the one who had been committing essentially serial abuse on young women by the nature of him responding to the description of the unnamed abuser, although he didnât mention that it was *multiple women* in his absolutely pathetic excuse of an âapologyâ.
Iâve been thinking about this deeply from pretty much directly the moment after Shubble revealed it really. Iâm not going to pretend that Iâve ever watched any of Shubbleâs stuff, and Iâve not watched streamers for a couple of years now, but the courage she had to do this is fucking immense. Wilbur is very well off financially with a massive and loyal fanbase, the influence he has is very large and not to be underestimated. His âapologyâ reeks of PR pressure, although it fails to meet the mark on all levels of even a basic apology (which is not even the bare minimum in this situation) and omits some very important details.
Itâs so sad that abuse and grooming is so common amongst streamers/YouTubers, but the response to this time (from the community) being genuine support instead of victim blaming does make me feel hopeful. Wilburâs condescension of women and younger ccs is absolutely disgusting. This recontextualises so many moments when heâs been dismissive of and made jokes at womenâs expense. What heâs done is abuse and itâs misogyny. Heâs picked on people he knows are less able to fight back from all parameters. Misogyny is massive in the gaming scene, and heâs relied on all these women (it really is a lot at this rate, even an ex-trumpeter from Lovejoy) staying silent out of fear.
Shubble saying keeping their silence protected him more than it protected her is very true, and this will absolutely wreck his reputation. Rather, heâs fucked it up himself, and there really is no one else to blame in this situation. The people who knew about it and were subject to this were typically smaller, younger or female streamers. Itâs disgusting that he had relied on their silence for so long.
This is a bit of a mess, but ngl so am I. Itâs been eating at me for as long as itâs been going on, I found out almost immediately. I was quite a big Wilbur fan for a damn long time, since his early days of streaming (when skyblock randomiser was made etc). I was emotionally invested in his original music and looked up to him a lot.
The worst thing I think is that I resonated with his online interactions with Tommy (which makes me feel vile), and his adoration of Wilbur, always calling him âlike a big brotherâ, and it fondly reminded me of me and my younger sibling. Except Wilbur would sometimes do some unexpectedly cruel things. Like stomping on Tommyâs hand and causing it to bleed. That alarmed me at the time, also when he revealed that he was relying on Tommy to talk him out of suicide, which really made me concerned about how healthy their relationship was. The worst thing is, this didnât surprise me that much at all when it was revealed. Shelbyâs descriptions could fit no other person, and it made sense and lined up with his past behaviour, but that doesnât make it any less wholly awful and horrific.
I wasnât going to talk about it on this blog, but I just feel angry. Angry for all these people heâs hurt. Angry that heâll still be living comfortably off of his fanbase for years to come, young people who trusted and idolised him, the vast majority young girls themselves. Angry for Shubble, angry for Niki, angry for the womenâs names we donât know yet, angry for those who had been intimidated into silence. Angry for those who had been abused and brutalised by him. The main thing thatâs coming up again and again is the biting, the bruising, the physical abuse, the way they were scared into saying anything, left traumatised by the way theyâd been treated. As if that could be brushed off in any way by some disgustingly shallow and self-centred attempt at self preservation of his reputation. Fuck off.
Like Aimsey said, this isnât some light cancellation from Twitter, these are reprehensible serial misogynistic crimes, and itâs only been days since the initial reveal and hours since his response and the influx of victims speaking up. My heart breaks to know how much more is going to be unearthed.
So yeah this is basically it, I treat this blog mainly as an archive for fan creations of things I like, but also as a collection of my thoughts. I have been unable to stop thinking about this, and I know that Iâve barely talked about mcyt on here, but I was heavily into dsmp and streamers for a long time. Shubble is insanely bloody brave for doing this, I wish them all the best (and the other victims) in recovering from his behaviour, as well as applauding her for the sheer fucking bravery to make the decision to speak up.
***Iâve seen some people saying Shubble uses they/them pronouns, but most people Iâve seen refer to her with she/her. If I find out she doesnât use she/her Iâll change this post < Shelby uses she/they
jacobvanloon
stormborns
tangentwithtanner
discoholicmusic
janainaart
baratheonpilled
snowghoul
theartofmadeline
